SPC and Cyberbit Partner to Advance Cybersecurity Workforce Education and Training

St. Philip’s College (SPC) and Cyberbit today announced they are entering into a partnership to enhance cybersecurity workforce education and training. St. Philip’s College has tapped Cyberbit’s cyber skilling expertise to train and prepare local residents for work in the cybersecurity field, with an aim to meet the growing demand for new tech hires—both internationally and in the greater San Antonio area. As a community college with a historically diverse student body, St. Philip’s College is the first HBCU and HSI in the nation to introduce a partnership of this kind, which prepares future cybersecurity professionals for workforce readiness using Cyberbit’s real-world attack simulation approach.

Today, 38% of cybersecurity positions in Texas—and over 40% in San Antonio alone—remain unfilled. And, the majority of the cybersecurity workforce comes from out-of-state, despite growing unemployment rates in the area. This is due to a local skills gap, and St. Philip’s College and Cyberbit have teamed up to bridge it by preparing future cybersecurity professionals for the realities of these high-pressure positions. Such preparations are integral to the success of students transitioning to the workforce, and to the companies bringing them on, as the great majority of new hires will experience their first ‘real-world’ attack on the job. Cyberbit’s partnership with St. Philip’s College will help train individuals for these scenarios within the San Antonio community and beyond, as demand for remote positions continues to grow amid a global cybersecurity shortage.

“St. Philip’s College values the importance of merging theory and experiential learning, so students have the opportunity to build the skills needed to enter the highly dynamic world of cybersecurity,” said St. Philip’s College President Dr. Adena Williams Loston. “The expertise exhibited by Cyberbit in their simulated cybersecurity lab environments makes them a qualified partner in cultivating competent cybersecurity professionals. The growing demand for work-force ready cyber-professionals far exceeds the supply. Our partnership with Cyberbit will help us bridge this gap by implementing real-world scenarios and tools that students will use within the industry.”

To commence the partnership, St. Philip’s College will begin training students on Cyberbit, a hyper-realistic, simulated training platform for cybersecurity practitioners. The hyper-realistic cyber range attack simulation contains the world’s largest catalog of on-demand attacks, ensuring participants can be trained to recognize and respond to any attacker technique, tactic or procedure. Trainees taking part in cyber range exercises learn both the technical and mental skills required to excel at problem-solving in a high-pressure attack environment.

St. Philip’s College is dedicated to its mission in helping the community through its programs and services and help students succeed in acquiring the knowledge and skills needed in today’s world. With San Antonio being the second-largest cybersecurity hub next to Washington D.C., the St. Philip’s College Cybersecurity Center has taken the latest step of partnering with Cyberbit to develop pools of talent within the community to meet this growing tech hub’s needs.

The college Cybersecurity Center—uniquely designated as an NSA/DHS National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) —provides students with academic, technical and employability skills through rigorous and applied coursework, work-based learning experiences, scenario-based exercises and industry-recognized certification preparation. The college offers a Fast-Track Level 1 Certificate that can be completed in as little as eight months. The six-course 100% online distance learning certificate is designed to provide hands-on training, IT knowledge and preparation for the CompTIA Network +, CompTIA Security+, additional industry certifications and the Information Technology Cybersecurity Specialist Level 1 Certificate.

“To improve the cybersecurity posture of enterprise organizations, it is imperative that college graduates—the next generation of talent—be workforce ready, contributing from day one to the security operations center,” said Susan Green, Director of Higher Education at Cyberbit. “We are excited to be working with St. Philip’s College, providing their students the perfect learning platform to build their cyber knowledge, technical skills, and gain relevant experience in a safe environment to ensure they excel upon entry to the cyber workforce!”